Silly Monkeys

The gift that keeps on giving: Father invents new card game to teach children the importance of squirrelling their money away

Author, philanthropist and father of two, Rob Gardner, invents new card game, Silly Monkeys, to teach children how to budget, save and share in a fun way

The author was looking for a game that taught key financial concepts for his daughters but couldn’t find something suitable – so created his own

Author, passionate financial education campaigner and father of two, Rob Gardner, has invented a brand new card game which aims to set children up with core financial skills for life do just that. Silly Monkeys teaches four to seven year olds critical concepts about money that the creator believes will give them the best chance at being financially secure in the future.

Gardner was inspired to develop the game after searching high and low for a fun children’s activity that would teach his two daughters key financial concepts in a fun way. Unable to find anything on the market that specifically broke down and taught the foundations of good money habits, such as budgeting and saving, he decided to develop his very own game. After months of trialing numerous ideas and formats, Gardner came up with the two to four player card game. Silly Monkeys

Silly Monkeys brings back much loved characters from Gardner’s successful financial education book, Save Your Acorns, which he wrote in 2016 after being unable to find any books for his daughters on the topic. The aim of Silly Monkeys is to help your squirrel store more acorns than your opponents in a sustainable way and avoid the Silly Monkey that encourages players to eat all their acorns at once! The moral of the game is that if you work hard and save your acorns, you can make sure that when you need resource – i.e. money – you will always have a healthy supply.

“Children learn their money saving habits by the age of seven so it’s imperative for us as parents to teach our kids the important lessons – how and why to budget and save – as early as possible. In today’s world of instant gratification children naturally want things right away without thinking about what this means in the long term. We need to instigate those crucial conversations early on, and so this immersive game will open up a dialogue between parent and child, and gives kids the opportunity to get to grips with the basics of finance – whilst having fun of course!”